Bold and loud yet subtle and complex – Krakatoa carries strength and fragility all in one painting. That’s the beauty of painting on clear polycarbonate sheets – turn it round the other way and it becomes something else completely. New patterns and colours shoot out of nowhere when reversed. The picture above shown Krakatoa with the painted side outermost. The paint is a highly reflective gloss enamel and as you can see. reflects just about any light source
This piece is dark for sure – it is virtually without any white at all, instead it is a complex array of black red and metallic silver. The most noticeable thing I see from this painting is the ridiculous level of detail in the paint applications. You’ll see what I mean in later photographs. I also like the way that there are areas where the paint has not been applied – allowing you to see through the acrylic sheet onto the wall behind – often casting complex and interesting shadows. This painting is very dense too – I have covered more of the surface area with paint than any of my previous acrylic sheet based works.
I painted onto a 10mm thick sheet of acylic sheet. The painting carries some weight as it measures a metre square. Chrome plated mounting brackets are supplied and the holes are pre-drilled into the sheet. The two photographs above show the thickness of the painting and the interesting effects you get when you look down the sides similar to what water does when you put a stick in it and it looks bent. Physicists call it Total Internal Reflection. Whatever it’s called, it looks great.
I chose to heavily paint certain areas and loosely paint others – allowing your eye to work between intense, rich areas of pattern and form and less formal, more relaxed areas where you can see through the painting to the wall area underneath. This gives a dimensional feeling to the piece.